Plenary, 26 Sep 2007
Meeting date: Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. I am pleased to welcome the president of Hindu Mandir, Shobha Nagpal.
Mrs Shobha Nagpal (President of Hindu Mandir, Glasgow):
Happiness is something that we all desire. We all want to be happy, and in the pursuit of happiness we are always jumping from one thing to another. There are many things that we want in life. We want to gain wealth, we want to be rich and we want to have all the luxuries in life. But do those things really make us happy? How do we define happiness? Where can we find true happiness? Those are questions that many of us have asked at some time or other in our lives.
We all know very well that, even when we become successful in some areas, we worry about other, grey areas, and we are not able to stay in a state of happiness for long. As in the phrase "the pursuit of happiness", we are all chasing after happiness through material goods, but does that really give us mental peace and eternal happiness? A couple of further questions also arise: can anything give us long-lasting happiness, and what is the purpose of our life?
What does Hindu philosophy say about it all? According to the Hindu faith and scriptures, mental peace, spiritual bliss and real happiness can be achieved only by serving the Lord in an unselfish manner. The phrase to keep in mind is "to serve the Lord in an unselfish manner". How do we serve the Lord in that way? Hindu Vedas and other scriptures speak of bhakti yog, whereby an individual can attain supreme bliss while performing all their worldly duties by serving humanity. Serving humanity is also serving the Lord.
The aim of dharma—religion—is, therefore, the welfare of all living beings. All the sages of India have emphasised that the observation of personal religious rituals, such as pooja or prayers, reading scriptures and so on, is only a very small part of our religion. Serving humanity is the other essential aspect. Within our faith, that leads us to believe that serving society is not optional; it is, in fact, compulsory. Such service, which is described as sewa, is our sacred duty. However, we must remember that sewa is based on sacrifice.
In general, our love must flow towards the whole of society and then stretch towards the whole of mankind. One who cannot love his society or mankind cannot love God.
A great spiritual leader, Swami Vivekanand Ji, once said:
"The poor and the miserable are for our salvation, so that we may serve the Lord".
Happiness is not in the having or in the being; it is in the doing and in the giving. Therefore, we have to reach out. We have to give, we have to share and we have to smile. In doing so, let us remind ourselves of the ancient Indian philosophy of vasudhaiv kutumbkam: the whole world is one family. Let us also remember the proverb that shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half the sorrow. Let us share that joy, let us share that happiness and let us share that sorrow.
Sarve bhavantu sukhinah—may all be happy.